The Internet has rapidly transformed the way people consume information over the past decade. Thanks to search engine optimization (SEO), people now have access to the most relevant information according to their search queries. However, smart technology has given rise to a new way to use the Internet: voice search.
Voice-activated devices have increased in the market over the last few years. Many American households have smart home devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa to crawl the web and answer their questions without manually typing the search term. People have also been using the voice command feature on their smartphones to conduct online searches, enjoying a quick and easy way to get the answers they need.
The Power of Voice Search
Given the convenience of voice search, it’s no wonder that it has topped the SEO list. Most companies nowadays are funneling their money into optimizing their website for voice search, using keywords people tend to use when they ask a question out loud instead of typing it.
Although voice SEO won’t eliminate typing commands and their importance in regular SEO, it does provide a new avenue of digital marketing that companies can leverage to improve their leads and generate more traffic.
How Voice Search Affects SEO
While many people use both voice-activated and typing commands to browse the Internet, the keywords they use often differ. People who manually enter their search queries often use truncated, shorter phrases to get the results they want. On the other hand, people who use voice commands opt for more conversational queries, resulting in longer keywords. If businesses want to take advantage of this, they must incorporate natural language keywords into their content.
Most voice search queries are also in question form. If someone wants to know about the weather in Colorado through a manual search, they’d likely put “weather Colorado.” However, if they’d prefer to use voice search, they’d say something like, “What’s the weather like in Colorado today?”. Although the two phrases are similar in meaning, they’re somewhat different in terms of keyword search.
Voice search queries also convey the intent of the user more clearly than typed queries. Your company’s marketing team will need to keep this in mind when deploying strategies to attract more visitors to your website. Using natural language in your content will help you rank higher since you’ll match more consumer searches, allowing you to leap ahead of your competitors.
Adapting Your Website to Voice SEO
Machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to progress at breakneck speeds, which means that your business must keep up to stay competitive. Although you’re well-aware of the importance of producing great content, you’ll have to write it in a conversational tone to appeal to voice search users. People who enter text-based queries have different purposes for searching than people who use voice-activated commands, so you’ll need to factor this in when optimizing your content.
Apart from incorporating long-tail keywords into your content, make sure that your website loads quickly. Google Voice prioritizes speedy websites, as people are slightly less patient when waiting for voice search results than text-based results. Having a fully responsive website will help you rank higher on search engines, ensuring that your audience finds your website and browses it.
Conclusion
Voice search has taken the world by storm over the last few years. Technology has become even more comfortable and convenient to use, explaining the rapid rise of Google voice search. By optimizing your website for voice SEO, you’ll reach your audience faster and more effectively while boosting your rankings.
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